ABSTRACT
We are now in a position to examine the nature of research itself as a type of practice embodying elements of theorizing and empirical discovery, and to do so in a way that will allow the adult educator to begin to interpret the process of research and its products in a more critical and 'meaningful' way, in terms of accessing material for his/her own practice. Our intention in this and subsequent chapters is not to show how the results of particular investigations can be 'applied' to educational activities, since the burden of our argument so far has been that this would imply a simplistic conception of the theory-practice or research-practice relationship.
